My pick of the week (2)

I bring you this second Pick of the Week on the eve of what’s not supposed to be an especially good weekend, weather-wise. Here’s the thing, though, our outside-worthy weekends are numbered, and I want to make sure I put this event out there.

This time, we’re going with the Corn Maze (Maize? :) ). This isn’t just any old corn maze designed for kids, but the one at Liberty Ridge Farm in Schaghticoke which is as challenging for adults as it is children.

Every year the giant maze (the first time I went it took two hours to find out way out) has a theme. This year visitors can celebrate the discovery of the Hudson River by Henry Hudson in the 12-acre maze designed to look like Hudson’s ship the Half Moon.

I went to the maze during the day, which was great, but they also offer nighttime hunts (flashlight optional), which I’m sure would be even more challenging. Sunday through Thursday the farm is open until 9 p.m.

Below the information line you’ll find the story I wrote several years ago about Liberty Ridge Farm’s maze.

Maized and Confused: Turning a Cornfield into a Labyrinth

We’re lost.

What’s worse, we’re lost somewhere between the vineyards of the Finger Lakes region and the Erie Canal … although we could be near Albany, or even Lake Placid. I’m really not sure — my friend and I are unable to see more than a few feet ahead, stuck in the middle of 2 miles of twisting, turning, 10-foot-high corridors, many of them leading to dead ends.

We’re in the 10-acre, New York state-shaped labyrinth called the MAiZE at Liberty Ridge Farm in Schaghticoke.

We listen for voices but hear nothing more than the gentle breeze rustling the corn stalks.
There’s a cornfield near my house, and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to run aimlessly through it. Now I have an idea: It’s kind of freaky.

Corn mazes are a fairly new agricultural sideline both around the nation and in the Capital Region. Over the past few years, farmers confronted by bad weather or poor growing seasons have looked for other ways to make a living off their land. According to Cynthia Gifford — who owns Liberty Ridge with her husband, Robert — the mazes offer a unique and fun way to grow a business.

In May, the Giffords cut down the knee-high cornstalks by hand. It took them two weeks to reproduce the state and carve out designs such as the Olympic rings near Lake Placid and a star representing the state capital at Albany.

Hull-O Farms in Durham and Riverview Orchards in Clifton Park have also transformed their cornfields into free-form mazes. Each one takes about 20 to 25 minutes to complete.

At the much larger Liberty Ridge field, “passports” help wandering maze-rats find the correct path. There are 10 numbered posts sprinkled throughout the maze. Each post contains a quiz question; correct answers pay off with clues to the heart of the labyrinth; incorrect answers will lead you down the proverbial wrong path.

There are eight passports to choose from, on topics ranging from sports and the Bible to astronomy and agriculture. We couldn’t agree on a trivia topic, so we chose an “interactive” passport that asked us to sing, dance, recite nursery rhymes and make up a cheer.

There are two parts to the Liberty Ridge maze: Phase One is practice, preparing visitors for the much more complicated Phase Two.

Gifford estimates savvy maze-walkers who don’t make any bad turns can get in and out of the first part in as little as 20 minutes. But Phase 2 takes nearly an hour, and sometimes two or three — although there are always a few whiz kids.

“If you’re 12, you can do everything in 45 minutes,” she said. “Twelve-year-olds just run.”

Sure enough, we had zipped through Phase One feeling like the hero of “Field of Dreams” as he followed Shoeless Joe Jackson into the mystical Iowa cornfield. In the brisk fall air, redolent with the sweet smell of fresh corn, we had heard anxious chatter as people ventured through the cornstalks on adjacent paths. We’d let them get far ahead of us: We wanted to figure this out on our own. We hit no dead ends, no endless circles, no confusion. We had emerged happy and confident, exclaiming how easy it had been. We thought we were ready to conquer Phase Two.

But now it’s 90 minutes later, and we realize we’re not 12 anymore. We’re still looking for the lone exit — it’s supposed to be near Long Island Sound — but we’ve been lost since we entered. Where do we need to go? Where have we been, and what path will lead us astray into larger, more frustrating circles? I’m starting to wonder if we’re going to be trapped in here until harvest time.

Luckily, the Giffords have stationed guardian angels around the maze to assist the perplexed. I catch up with a teenager wearing wrap-around shades and an oversized yellow T-shirt with “ Corn Cop” splashed across the back. He’s watching with bemusement as kids and adults pass him by — going in the wrong direction.

“You missed one of the questions on the passport, and you’re going the wrong way,” he tells us with an all-knowing smile.

Thanks a lot, we know that — but harassing the 14-year-old cop isn’t going to get us out of here. Instead, we try not to feel like Hansel and Gretel as we backtrack for the fifth or sixth time, following our footprints in the soft earth.

We’re back in front of kernel-colored Post Number Seven, which might be where we made our most recent wrong turn.

We can’t remember what we’d chosen on our last pass, so we enlist the help of a wandering Girl Scout troop. Ten sets of little-girl hands count off the words: 34, choice B.

Our 23-year-old hands come up with a count of 35 — not one of the choices. Feeling hot, thirsty and just a bit discouraged, we put our trust in their scouting skills and turn left.
To salvage what remains of our pride, we let them get ahead; we’re still determined to beat this thing on our own.

The MAiZE tends to bring out a resourceful streak in people of all ages.

“We had a 70-something-year-old man making his way through the corn maze with his family at night in the pouring rain,” Gifford said. “They came prepared with flashlights and raincoats and completed both phases.”
In addition to Scout troops, the MAiZE attracts school groups and companies who use the expedition as a team-building activity.

Isabel Prescott, who owns Riverview Orchards, got lost in her own maze when she was giving the corn creation a trial run earlier this month. She’s used a megaphone to round up the occasional platoon of lost children.

All the maze owners seem to agree that getting lost is part of the experience.

“Parents lose their children — even their spouses — on a daily basis,” said Gifford. “But that’s what the Corn Cops are for, and it’s all part of the fun.”

Another half-hour has passed since the Girl Scouts turned us in the right direction, and I’m really getting fearful that hubris has gotten the best of us. We’re still wandering — lost! alone! — and we can’t even find a Corn Cop to ask for help.

Finally: voices. The same voices we’d been trying to shut out in order to solve the MAiZE on our own were now welcoming. Follow those voices and we’d find people … water … our car.

We turn another bend which looks familiar to me, but by now we’ve learned not to go on my instinct. We see an opening up ahead. I yell “Over there!” as my friend and I take off in a 12-year-old’s sprint toward the cheers of those who’ve just completed the maze.

We see Long Island Sound — the exit — but I don’t know if we can cheer for ourselves. We were outwitted by kids half our age. We were overconfident. We got lost, but we were looking for fun — and after a few (OK, more than a few) wrong turns, we found it.

5 Responses

I’ve done this as a team building exercise in the past and it was great. You can even check with the place you go (we did one in Glenville) and they might be able to center a day of activities for your team building.

I love the corn maze, I’ve done it every year for the past 4+ yrs. FYI – its a little more expensive on Friday and Saturday nights, when its haunted, but it’s pretty fun too. Although last yr I made the mistake of going after a rain storm…

I did this maze on a full moon night a couple years ago – was a haunted maze at that. Kinda creepy as one guy (hope he was a paid actor) just followed us from about 50 feet back, than would leave and re-appear again. Took us a good 2 hours because we never stopped to answer any of the trivia questions.

My B-day is Halloween and my friends always do the things I’d like to do…even if they don’t really want to. I saw this place on Capital News 9 and wanted to go. A group of us (some reluctantly) went to the “haunted maize” a few years ago and have been several times since. We have always had a blast! I have never been so scared and laughing so hard all at the same time! The guys with the chainsaws are the best! They made a whole group of us topple over like dominoes. You feel like you’re in Friday the 13th. I could smell the gas from the chainsaw. No blade of course…but God, what a fun time! My friends and I continue to go each year. There is no longer any reluctance as everyone loved it. What a great suggestion for the upcoming season. And yes, going after it has recently rained makes for a messy time. Dress appropriately.

Jaime – I did, including sneakers and gloves, it gets cold in October, lol. However, like you mentioned, the guy with the Chainsaw scared the crap out of me and when i turned around to run, i lost my footing in the mud. I was lucky my friends let me in the car after that :-)… Although they were the ones that pushed me to the front of the group…